Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed confidence, asserting that he anticipates a landslide victory in May's elections. He stated that the BJP alone is expected to secure more than 370 seats, ensuring a two-thirds majority, while the NDA is projected to surpass the 400 mark. Responding to the debate on the motion of thanks to the President's address, Modi confidently declared, "While I refrain from predicting specific numbers, it's certain that the BJP will exceed 370 seats, and the NDA's total will surpass 400."
A total of 370 seats would mark the highest tally for a single party since the 1984 election, when the Congress capitalised on a sympathy wave following the assassination of Indira Gandhi. This score would fall just one short of the record set by the Congress under the leadership of India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, in the second general election of 1957.In the 2019 general election, the BJP secured 303 seats, while the NDA's combined tally reached 353. The PM’s claim, during his last major speech in the current Lok Sabha, marked the first time he had embraced “iss baar char sau (400) paar” chant of the cadre which has gathered momentum following the growing disarray in the rival INDIA bloc and because of BJP steadily enlisting the support of regional allies, the latest being Nitish Kumar's JD(U).
Modi focused on the state of the opposition camp, saying it had failed to gel. “Somebody is going around posing as a motor mechanic. He must be learning how to fix the alignment. But he has failed to get the opposition’s alignment right,” he said in a thinly-disguised jibe at Rahul Gandhi and his latest yatra.
Congress faced the brunt of Prime Minister Modi's criticism, as he remarked that the opposition party's pessimism would not only confine it to the opposition benches but also potentially relegate it to the visitors' gallery. Modi also alluded to indications suggesting that Sonia Gandhi may transition to the Rajya Sabha, potentially relinquishing the family stronghold of the Rae Bareli seat.
